Beyond Failure - A collection of nostalgia from a musician in Atlanta. This is meant as a respository for my old bandmates that are looking for old pictures, music, and stuff that was left behind. Also, this could be somewhat entertaining for the casual
observer who might have been around at the time. Enjoy.

Friday, February 29, 2008

1994: The Year of Car Vs. Driver - Live At WREK Shows 1/4/94 and 9/13/94

From L to R: James Joyce, Ashley Moore, Steve Wishart, Matt Mauldin, Jon Rothman at the Somber Reptile after our final show on July 21, 1995 with Braid and Inkwell.

Car vs. Driver began when I was 17 years old. By the time we played our final show, I was 19. This band was the music of my life during a period when people usually experience the greatest amount of freedom, which is what I think of whenever I listen to this music now. There were so many new experiences: living on our own, meeting new people, getting a new perspective on life. Our lifestyle in turn gave us a new perspective on expressing music, and we poured all of our energy and emotion into it. Music that now seems a world away – music from a different life. It’s hard to remember that everything about being in a band at that time was simply making a 7”, buying the cheapest van you could find, and touring the country for the summer. There was no infrastructure to build your music around, which also removed its barriers. Instead of running our band like a corporation, we played peoples living rooms and basements, engaged in kickball tournaments, made record covers out of manila envelopes, slept on top of our van, cooked pasta, and played with some of the most amazing bands in the process. Bands that epitomized the time – like Spirit Assembly, Policy of 3, Friction, Current, The Yah Mos, Assfactor 4, Frail, Hoover, Freemasonry, Scout, and Inkwell. The experience we had is something that could never be recreated, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been a part of that moment in time. Thank you Matt, Steve, and Jonathan for bringing this to me.

James JoyceAugust 2004

This compilation is dedicated to our faithful roadies Ashley Lawrence Moore and William Anthony Nation.

We froze, sweat, bled, argued, and laughed.

WREK is the college radio station for Georgia Tech, and by far my favorite station in Atlanta. One great thing they have done for so many years is the Live At WREK show, which plays at 10PM on Tuesday nights. Everyone has played it from Minutemen and Sun Ra to any local Atlanta band you can imagine. It has become somewhat like the Peel Sessions for Atlanta bands, and an easy way to get a decent recording of your music (especially back before the days of quality home recording). When Car Vs. Driver played Live At WREK, we tried to play as many songs as possible so we would have demo versions of our new stuff, as well as some old songs we never properly recorded. People tell us that these recordings better represent Car Vs. Driver as a band than the records we put out. You can decide for yourself. Also, WREK has a great website where you can listen to all the content from the past week online, as well as the Live at WREK comilation CD they put out a few years ago and other gems.

I do not plan to post the Car Vs. Driver discography here, as you can still get the great 2XCD package that Stickfigure released in 2005, here is the link: http://stickfiguredistro.com/stickfigurerecords/#stickdisc001cd . Gavin was cool enough to keep our recordings in print by putting out this compilation, and he deserves all the business he can get. I will post our reunion show in 1997 soon, as well as flyers and pictures, but you should have enough to get started for now.Keep in touch, and leave a comment so I don't feel like this stuff is going into a void.

Our pre-first show that e$ references. I believe the second song we played was Good Riddance - but not 100% positive. At our official first show I do remember we played Good Riddance twice. It was Matt's favorite song and we opened with it. A bunch of his friends came late so he made us play it a second time as our last song so his friends could hear it. I am laughing right now just thinking about the fact that we opened and closed with the same song. Hilarious!!!!

That is how I remember our first pre-show at the Somber Reptile. We played Bitter and Good Riddance and Matt broke the front of the stage with his raging. I also remember playing all those early shows in the summer when it was still light out. That doesn't happen so much anymore.